August 19 and 21

On Friday the 19th I ran on the cinder track late in the evening as the weather cooled down.  I decided to go for a more challenging workout since I had two days of rest. I made it a goal to run 10 400s in Progressive fashion with no pressure. I thought a 10 minute pace would be very beneficial if I could handle it. So I tried to run 2:30 per 400m until I could no longer sustain that effort with a 2 minute recovery.  I found running under 2:30 to be quite comfortable and waiting for 2 minutes of recovery seemed too long. So, I reduced recovery to 90 seconds and proceeded to run 10 of the 400m efforts with the time gradually decreasing steadily down to 2:07.  I finished strong and feeling comfortably drained. This workout seems like a big step forward in my current training phase.

On Sunday the 21st after a day of recovery I was surprised at how light my legs felt as I set out on a long run on the Jackson roads. My intention was to make this a purely aerobic effort with no intention to pick up the pace at any time along the way. I completed four miles in 46 minutes after a half mile warm up with the dog. Once again I finished strong but fatigued.

Fortunately all my stats have been positive and steady over the last few weeks.